Extra! Extra! (7.27)

"Short of players showing up drunk and passing out before the 6th inning"

How is that a bad thing? That saves us 3 innings worth of a beat down right there.

Plaschke says: "Hmmm. Wait a minute. There is one scenario in which there would be no glare from the seats.

If fans were sitting in them!"

Now THAT was very funny.!

AK,

Who would be there to witness it? The fans? They're gone by then (the 20,000 who actually showed up in the first place). The media? Well, if you won't tell I won't either. HAHA!!

Accordning to the LA Times:

The Nats are "believed to have asked the Angels for one of their three top young pitchers, John Lackey, Ervin Santana or Jered Weaver, AND one of their top prospects, Howie Kendrick or shortstop Brandon Wood."

I'm telling you all, Soriano isn't going anywhere unless the price goes down. The Nats are insane. Nobody in their right mind will pay their asking price for a player you might only be able to keep for 2 months (reminder: he's a free agent after this season, which is why the Nats want to move him).

From the Washington Post:

"Nationals right-hander Livan Hernandez knows today will be his final start before Monday's trade deadline, and he is savvy enough to understand he could be dealt".

There's a guy who won't cost us too much and could helps us greatly by being the innings eater we so desperately need.

Hey, I am surprised NOBODY is giving Little a little bit of blame for the Dodgers Woes and an awful season, we keep blaming players(rightfully) but also players respond to their managers, right? check out a starting line up for the 1st Place Detroit Tigers......

Polanco, 2B
Thames, RF
Monroe, LF
Ordonez, DH
Guillen, SS
Inge, 3B
Infante, CF
Granderson, CF
Shelton, 1B
Rodriguez, C

No superstars right? expect for pudge........
Now consider the following, only a few of these hitters are hitting at around 300. So, what makes a great team such as the Detroit Tigers? Solid players, Solid Coach, and above the rest, PASSION, BELIEF AND DETERMINATION,"CLUTCH HITTING", etc.... Do we have that with our dodgers?

On a day off, its nice to check out the rest of the league......

Please wake up Dodgers!!!!!!

Do the words 'urgency' or 'drastic' exist in your vocabulary, Mr. Grady Little? Because this Dodgers team has been in urgent need of some drastic changes for quite some time now.

We've all seen this coming from quite some time now. It hasn't been a matter of 'if', but rather 'when' the Dodgers' offense was going to to disappear. The lineup has no power, and they were lucky to nickel and dime in so many runs earlier in the season. Mr. Little, you were right to let well enough alone while the runs kept falling, but you must have known that it wasn't going to last forever. One would expect that a major league manager like you would have formulated a contingency just in case Plan A (in your case, do nothing, and let the players do what they like) failed.

Well, Mr. Little, Plan A is failing. In fact, it's been failing for two weeks now. Your Laissez-Faire offense hasn't been able to get anything going, and as a result, the pitching staff (which, in all fairness, has been doing a passable job until this last series) is going down the toilet as well. So, Mr. Little, where is your secondary plan of action, your Plan B? Sure, you probably should have unveiled it sometime last week, after the first couple of games of the homestand, but it's still not too late.

What's that, Mr. Little? You already have made changes? Russell Martin batted 5th in the order? Ethier hit cleanup? You fielded an all-reserve team a couple of games ago? You played Jason Repko, fresh off the DL, for 7 innings in three games? Oh, and you required players to stay out of uniform until an hour before first pitch yesterday? Wonderful! I'm sure those moves really fired up your team, and put lots of pressure on the opposition. I also find it genius that you've done nothing about Drew, who continues to take that inside fastball for strike 3, Lofton, who plays the outfield like a RF in a T-ball league, and all those guys who can't seem to lay off that first pitch. What other goodies do you have in your magical sack of tricks?

Seriously, Mr. Little, the team's performance since the break, and your performance since opening day, has been pathetic. We know that you're no Larry Bowa or Jim Leyland, and that it's not in you to chew out your players when they fail. In fact, it's probably a good thing, because the entire clubhouse would probably laugh at you if you tried to pull a stunt like that. After all, all of your players struggling players are multi-million dollar veterans who don't believe that anything's wrong as long as there is money in the bank.

If you can't change the players, and the players wont change for you, CHANGE THE GAME ON THEM! Go back to the fundamentals. Get together with your coaches and hold some spring training-type batting/bunting/fielding/baserunning drills. Call more plays from the dugout. Hell, call some pitches (or have Honeycutt do it) if you think one of your guys is in a bind. And if that doesn't work, get really silly out there:

Require everyone the first time through the lineup to see a minimum of three pitches at the plate. Even if that means three strikeouts on nine straight pitches, that's still better than the 4-5 pitch giveaways that your guys have been holding recently. Give everyone the green light. Play with four outfielders. Turn the friggin' field into a 3 ring circus! Pretty stupid, I know. But considering all the stupid moves (and non-moves) that you've made over the course of the season, Mr. Little, they seem genius by comparison.

The way things are going right now, if the Dodgers ever had to face the Kansas City Royals this season, your team would make Odalis Perez look like Bret Saberhagen in his prime. The team is in need of some serious change right now, Mr. Little, and you're the only one who can make it happen.

Mike T,

When you say "no one is making a big deal out of it," are you specifically referring to the readers of this blog? If so, fair enough. But the media has been all over the blow up. It was heavily covered SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight. Today's Extra! section has a bunch of articles linked in that talk quite a bit about the incident, including Bill Plaschke's colunmn, which rips Penny. And BK spent most of yesterday's post-game wrap discussing the altercation. So it's getting plenty of local and national attention, at least in terms of coverage.

Also, from what I gather, Grady Little hasn't ruled out punishment.

AK

AK,

Yes, the people on this blog. I'm not referring to you because you reported it in your post.

mike

I'm going to agree with Makoto Ueno on the Penny issue - I'd rather see Penny blow up and show some energy than watch J.D. Ghost take strike three and walk away (as he so routinely does).

Penny is an emotional guy - we've known that for a long time. I was at the game last year when he was called out running out a bunt and it looked like he was going to eat the umpire. If he wants to go after a guy for not playing well, I say let him - maybe it'll inspire something. (Now, if we were in first place with a nice lead in the standings, it would be a different story.)

So yeah - although I don't like the idea of calling players out during a game, I'm going to generally side with Penny on this.

AK,

Grady hasn't ruled out punishment? Is he waiting for the next victory?

The longer he waits, the less the impact/message. The "justice" has to be meted out swiftly.

I can hardly control my anticipation.

Grady--Berrrrad, whut you done was bad. You can't pitch fer the nex' four days.

Penny--Gosh, Skip. That's harsh (almost unable to control his laughter--realizing he wouldn't be pitching anyway).

Grady--Huh? Ya think so? OK, go see Ned. He wants to sign you to a contract extension. Dreifort type money. Don't worry about pitching good no more, 'cause we suck somethin' awful (Dodgeball reference, sorry). Wish I could think of somethin' to do.

I'd be happy to oblige lol...

What the hell was Penny yelling at Lofton for...incase he didn't know not only have the dodgers been bad at defense, they've been bad at pitching also (and hitting, and managing, and Gming, and not injuring themselves, or in JD Drew's case, playing everyday). Why doesn't he yell at himself (he hasn't been that good lately either), or his pitching buddies, or anyone that's not Bilingsley, Eithier, and basically all the rookies (at least they're trying to do their jobs). Oh the he** with them. Let them all punch each other out...at least there'd be some action. Certainly better than the games we've been watching lately. Oh wait, there have been action, but they're mostly by the opponents against Dodger pitching, my bad!

How did I do? LOL, I'm really frustrated. Sometimes, I think we're more frustrated than the players, and that's a shame. Obviously the damage control did not work lol. Still, BK was right, thank god for the NL West, a little streak here and there and the dodgers are back into it again (hopefully).

"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue"

Longtime Angel fan that finally had it up to here with Angels management and their horrible broadcasters, so I finally decide, lets try the Dodgers on for size...Boy does my timing suck... Still love VinSCully though.